Monday, March 30, 2020

3/12/20 Michael Zverevs PD7

3/12/2020 - Blog
Michael Zverev
                                            Period 7
    What are the updates around the world/community regarding the virus?
        Here are some up-to-date facts: 
Coronavirus cases top 421,000 worldwide
Worldwide restrictions: Nearly a third of the world’s population, 2.5 billion people, are under coronavirus-related movement restrictions. New Zealand declares a state of emergency.
US sees deadliest day: At least 163 people died Tuesday, bringing the US death toll past 700, as the WHO warned the country could be the next epicenter of the virus.
Olympics postponed: The 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo will be delayed for about a year.
Lockdown lifted: China's Hubei province, ground zero for the pandemic, plans to lift nearly all lockdown restrictions today.

U.S Congress unlikely to give stimulus deal final approval Tuesday and talks likely to slip into Wednesday. 
Leaders in Congress and the Trump administration have been working for days to pass as quickly as possible a roughly $2 trillion economic stimulus package, which would include direct payments to taxpayers among hundreds of billions of dollars in other stimulus measures, to attempt to restore the markets.
What is it like working from home?
Personally I enjoy working from home. I always valued the ability to schedule my studies around times that are convenient for me. I find myself being more productive (largely in part to counteract boredom) whilst still enjoying the free time that i find available to me. It seems as though all the teachers are still heavily involved with the class, via remote learning tools such as zoom, allowing them to stay updated and communicate with students to make sure we are up to date on assignments and due dates. I must say, however, that I have picked up reading more often in the last few days. It really is of interest to me to learn about how the world handles the pandemic, and how it has ripple effects on society and the economy. Working from home has truly allowed me to properly balance school work whilst working on hobbies that I always struggled to find time for.
Your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now.
Early reports out of China made it seem like the end of the world. Unfortunately, due to the communist government's tight control of information in China, verifying mortality rates, infection rates, and degree of spread, is very difficult. Because it is striking elderly populations harder, this is probably not the next SARS, or Ebola. It is more like the seasonal flu and cold - but more deadly.
My fear is that shutting down too much travel and commerce will lead to shortages of supplies - supplies needed to keep our health care system working properly. As long as the mortality rate of younger healthy people remains very low - like the seasonal flu - then the rest of society should be able to get on with business.
Large-scale quarantines, travel restrictions, and social-distancing measures drive a sharp fall in consumer and business spending, leading to a recession. Legislation needs to act fast in order to correct the decline and boost our economy back to the position where it once was. It starts with congress passing the Stimulus bill to promote further spending and investment.
   

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Sunday, March 29, 2020

3/24/20 Samiha Aladin Pd 2

3/24/20
Modern Mythology PD2
Samiha Aladin
Blog #3
What is it like working from home?
Working from home is a really different and new experience. There’s 3 days - A, B, and C with 3 classes a day each lasting 75 minutes with 45 minutes break in between. With classes starting later, I’m able to catch up on some sleep as I don’t have to wake up super early and commute to school. It’s also nice in the way that I can move around and be independent to do other things during class and not be restrained to a table and chair. With this new REMOTE learning happening, my time has been more flexible which I like since I don’t have to submit assignments immediately such that I have such a limited time to complete other assignments. The ability to complete assignments on my own time and to have the lessons given to us is completely different from a school setting but definitely a benefit, as I have the time to comprehend the material and also discuss with teachers on Zoom when I need to. Having the materials is also handy since we can access information that we usually want but are not given. I think the fact that our school is tech-based to begin with helps with a smooth transition to online classes. Overall, I’d say that this big change of scenario to REMOTE learning is pretty nice. We also are being kept isolated from each other, where we decrease the chances of us contracting this deadly virus, which is a crucial benefit.


What are the updates around the world/community regarding the virus?
  • Cases in the US are increasing with 42,164 cases confirmed and 704 deaths with New York being the epicenter of this crisis. We have a total of 25,665 in New York State. 
  • Worldwide, there’s a total of 372,755 cases.
  • Public schools are closed until at least April 20 
  • The need for PPE and ventilators is increasing day by day along with the need for more hospital beds and ICU beds to treat patients. As a result, Governor Cuomo has brought in the Army Corps to convert 4 sites in the State into hospitals 
  • Companies like Ford and Tesla have currently halted their productions in order to produce equipment for the country in this time of crisis. 
  • All non-essential workers are to stay home and all non-essential businesses are closed indefinitely. Restaurants are closed with only takeout or delivery being offered until further notice.
  • New York is put on a PAUSE



Your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now.
What’s happening right now feels so unreal. A week ago, I never would’ve thought that I would be where I am right now. People are emptying out shelves in stores from toilet paper to water bottles pushing companies to limit how many supplies a person can buy. It’s crazy how we are going through all this right now and everything we are facing. We have no answer or solution to this virus and to what’s going to happen in the future. It’s terrifying how all our lives have changed within just a short amount of time. Everything is basically an “I don’t know.” To us seniors, it’s going to be very memorable (not necessarily in a good way) looking back at how our last year has been cut so short and how we have been afflicted with this pandemic. We don’t know what’s going to happen to all our senior activities - prom, senior day, graduation. We don’t even know if graduation will happen! Everything is so unknown it’s crazy! We started off this new decade with bad news after bad news, and it just seems to be getting worse. Education-wise I think that SITHS being technology-based, with technology and the internet already implemented helps students a lot with online learning since we’ve had most of our assignments on Google Classroom from the start. Though there’s an expectation of schools opening back on April 20th, I personally doubt it considering how rapidly this virus is spreading. No one is safe, considering how deadly and contagious this virus is and could affect anyone and everyone at any time. What’s even scarier is how people who are asymptomatic could be walking around affecting others without even knowing it. Though we will miss a lot of things, safety is and should be a priority and the best thing for us to do is stay home and slow the spread.


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3/27/20 Serena Low PD1

3.27.2020
Serena Low
Modern Mythology Period 1

As of Saturday, there was a lot of turmoil going on in the US in regards to the coronavirus. Trump made a statement about how the tri-state area should be locked down, meaning no outreach to any other states. Later on in the day, he announced on Twitter that he didn’t mean it and was mistaken. As a response to the statement, during a press release, Cuomo stated that it was as if he was trying to start a war between states. While I understand that New York has one of the highest contraction rates, it’s ridiculous that people are being stopped for just having a New York license plate. I get that people in other states want to try to keep their community as corona-free as possible, but this behavior could be compared to the people getting beaten up just because they’re Chinese. Trump also continues to call COVID-19 the “chinese virus” and a lot of people do believe that just because it originated in China, all Chinese people have the virus. This has led people to be vindictive against Chinese people, attacking them in public and openly racist.

Do I expect better from this generation? Yes, yes I do. Some people may not have access to entirely accurate information, but they shouldn’t blame an entire race for this pandemic. It’s not solely one race’s fault for spreading the virus; that takes more than a few people. Violence will not solve anything. Even if someone manages to eradicate everyone with COVID-19, the virus will still be there. Smallpox and other diseases that were supposedly wiped out a while ago still have cases that pop up out of nowhere. The right thing to do is to social distance, be aware of the symptoms of the disease, wash your hands thoroughly, and find better things to do at home.

On another note, the quarantine has not been treating me well. My sleep schedule is not doing well. I believe that I have been sleeping less than I have when I was still attending school. For example, I sleep as late as 5 AM for no reason; I don’t have much work on most days, except for Block B. Honestly, there’s nothing much to do at home. I could practice instruments or learn a new hobby, but the quarantine has sucked any motivation I once had out of me. I have an overwhelming need to go outside and just breathe fresh air, but I know it’s not wise to do that. It’s really hard to keep the temptation at bay when there’s a large window in your room.

It has been somewhat hard to keep track of certain assignments and zoom calls. I get distracted by the news blasting throughout my house 24/7 paired with my brother video calling his friends about games and not about school work. There is not a minute of silence in my house, which makes me want to go outside even more. A personal thought to end with: Why does my mom kick me off the TV to watch the weather if we don’t go out anymore?

https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/trump-backs-off-threat-of-coronavirus-quarantine-for-nyc-area/

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Friday, March 27, 2020

Kevin Chen 3/30/20 Period 2 - Blog #3

Monday, March 30, 2020
Kevin Chen, Period 2
Modern Mythology
Blog #3


Write about what you learned in your online English lessons:

From the moment that I opened “Interview with the Vampire,” I knew that I was in for a treat. I read page by page without actually considering the underlying messages and themes that the novel was trying to portray. From lesson 1, given the quote from Louis about how he felt about taking Lestat’s blood, I learned how this symbolized a homoerotic relation. The first time I read this I hadn’t considered this may be related to one’s sexuality. While discussing with Ms. Fusaro last Monday, I learned more by clarifying things with her. Now, vampires and sexuality go hand and hand. The blood which gets sucked out, it can come to represent purity and one’s virginity. Vampires don’t stop their thirst for prey to any certain human, they go for all indiscriminately. After reading the article about morality, I was convinced that vampires were justified in breaking human ethics and morals, primarily because they aren’t humans! Lesson 4 was very informative. The summary that Anne Rice created Claudia to express a cold, unfeeling character that is masked by both childhood and feminism. I had read the book to see Claudia as a mere young child that ultimately had their innocence and human side taken from them, but this brought light to a new perspective. Claudia is “everything and nothing.” This made things more clear to me, now I understood that the character of the vampire child is confusing in the sense that she is neither a child, from her 5-year-old human appearance, nor is she a woman, which her actual age as a vampire approaches the 65-year mark. The lessons clarify many issues that people may have been confused about during the reading, and what I have typed is but a small portion of that valuable knowledge.

What is like working from home?:

I actually wasn’t really looking forwards to working at home via “Remote Learning.” Being glued to the computer screen for most of the day to complete assignments from multiple classes isn’t exactly what I would find to be optimal. There are classes where the teacher doesn’t assign the work till the morning that we see them. For me, I always want to get an idea as to what we would be working on, which this mythology class does so well, but the morning of. Though I don’t exactly save the assignments till the moment it is due, I’ve witnessed people struggle to cram the work in long after it’s assigned. With attendance being a poll for most classes, I have seen myself get in a decent amount of sleep. At school, I would usually be hungry till seventh-period lunch, but at home that is a different story. I can actually snack on some chips at ease, and use the bathroom whenever possible because I don’t need to ask any authoritative figure. All in all, working from home is surprisingly enjoyable and fun.

Your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now:

Well, for starters, it does seem that everything is entirely chaotic at this moment of time. At the moment I am typing this response, the United States has surpassed Italy, Spain, and China for the most confirmed amount of Covid-19 cases in the world. It is actually mindblowing to see that we have reached over 100,000 cases. New York also is the state with the most amount of cases which leads to paranoia. My mother is extremely worried about the extent to which this virus will spread around. I have been on lockdown within the borders of my house for the past week, which I most dreadfully despise. Despite my many attempts to persuade my mother to let me out the front door to go on even the shortest distance run, she straight out rejects that notion within a moment’s time. I can promise that I won’t enter within a block’s radius from anyone on the streets but she believes that the virus is airborne and that the moment you step out the front door, you will pose a great threat to the family. My father works five times a week and even before he steps into the household, my mother prepares Lysol spray to sanitize the air around him. She is very cautious, which protective gloves, a face mask, and bags are prepared at all times. I also notice through social media and the news of increased assaults and insults towards the Chinese-American community, along with the other Asian communities. This is extremely insulting to witness and it sure does envoke a feeling of anger within me. I personally faced discrimination, in my own backyard! My neighbor noticed me doing some light reading on a beautiful day, but he decided to be a despicable being by blasting the national anthem and star-spangled banner on his loudspeaker. I was infuriated. At the moment, I was trying many attempts to contact 311 to report the loud noise disturbance but they hadn’t picked up. My parents strongly advised me to let the man be, but this was extremely disrespectful to disturb the peace of the neighborhood by playing patriotic music. We are all Americans and should be united at this time, not show such hate.

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David Gao Period 5 3/27/20| Remote learning is really fun but don't get me wrong so is your class

David Gao
3/27/20
Period 5
Blogger #9

What it's like working from home is honestly great as I no longer have to commute (although my commute was already short) and I get to stay home every day which is just about every student's dream (I think). As for the actual learning part of it, for me, it definitely feels like I can go at my own pace and work better because of it and since every period is 75 minutes, although it's double the work I feel as if I can get through the work easier than if I were actually in class. Especially since I get more sleep and it feels like a more relaxed environment without you being really time constrained since most of the work is homework and even that is better since I am given more time to work at my own pace. Although it is much easier to get distracted now during class periods since no one is really watching me to make sure I'm on task. Also, I dislike zoom meetings as it takes the solitary, working at my own pace, lax environment and throws it out the window as it's basically going to a classroom except I'm sitting at my own chair and desk, but few classes do this so I'm very glad.

My thoughts on the reading: Chapter 2-5 of part II was interesting as it mainly follows Winston and Julia's adventure of sorts around different obscure places in London where there are no telescreens to spy on every move that you make. In these places, they make love and discuss various topics that come to mind. For example in the church tower, the second place they meet up, Winston remembered a time when he was still with his wife Katherine. They had gotten lost on a hike and during this scene, he tells Julia that if he were the person he was now then he would have killed her. This felt really sketchy since when we first meet Winston we see that he's just a normal guy with "abnormal" thoughts and makes it seem that Winston and Julia and even the proles are very desensitized to death and violence. Which, actually thinking back on it happens a lot throughout the beginning of the book with the public hangings and war criminals. But I didn't expect this from Winston himself, as he mostly avoided public hangings and sees himself as different from everyone else because he chooses to think differently. Maybe because thinking back on it. it would not have been the right thing to do and he could have thought of it as a rebellion against the party to kill his wife who so blindly followed the words of the party. But his proneness to violence makes me think he fits in much more than he thinks.

What did I learn in my online English classes?
So the aim that I'm going to be focusing on is: How can we analyze the symbolism in Winston Smith's name? What I learned about the significance of Winston's name is that it is based on Winston Churchill who fought against the Nazis in World War II. This event seems like the inspiration that Orwell used in designing his book. Winston going against his totalitarian government is a parallel to Winston Churchill's war against the Nazis. The Nazis whose the government had total control over the country and often spread propaganda and censored information by the press. As for Winston's last name, Smith, this is obviously a very common last name which I assume is to allow the audience to be able to relate to him, and also show that even though he's normal in every way except in his thoughts he can still try his hardest to take down the "man".

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Winny Chan 3/27/20 Period 2 - Blog #3

Winny Chan Blog #3 3/27/20 
Modern Mythology 2020 pd2 
What is it like working from home? 
Working from home has been very challenging for me. I have no motivation to do any work because I can stay in my room all day. My entire family is staying home during the quarantine. I have two older brothers stuck at home that I have to share the internet with. One has to work from home and the other also has to do college remote learning. We are all holed up in our corners all doing what we need to do and because of our different schedules, the house is very quiet. Even though we are home the tensions are really high with all of the news about the coronavirus. 

What are the updates around the world/community regarding the virus? 
On March 27th, 2020 the United States is leading the world in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases with 96,968 cases. The USA has surpassed Italy and China in the number of cases and gained 11,533 new cases today. So far the total number of people recovered is only 2,453 and the number of deaths is 1,477 people. There has also been a self-reported confirmation that a member of the school community has tested positive. Hopefully, everyone gets better and this all passes soon. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2F7kGQhbooxTFmRj0hG19QCJe7zWz5-E6N1hHzWpcmNss1LvH198EaDiE#countries 

Own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now. 
Right now I hate the feeling of not knowing what is going to happen. At the beginning of the month, everyone was saying don’t worry we aren’t at a big risk of anything happening and within weeks this has blown up and we are being quarantined. This makes me worried because this has already affected the way of life so much and if this keeps going on we have no idea what it will do to us and the economy. Once this is dealt with will this be a yearly thing or is it a one-time thing? How long will it take for us to go back to the way things were?
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3/26/20 Gordon Liang PD1

3/26/20
Modern Mythology PD1
Gordon Liang

What is it like working from home?

        Working from home went a lot better than expected, but still a bit of a challenging process for me. I like the idea of having just 3 classes a day as it allows me more time to do my tasks. However, there has been a slight increase in assignments so I find it a bit difficult to keep track of some of the work. I find this form of learning to be more challenging than in a traditional classroom setting. I personally learn better in the classroom with the teacher going over the lesson rather than just reading off of the slides online. In addition, being around other peers and collaborating with each other allows me to learn and understand the topic more.
With so much time in my hands comes a lot of procrastination. Working on my phone or laptop provides a lot of distractions. My laptop is not always that fast, which makes it hard for me to attend the online conferences. I honestly feel like I haven't been using my time during this quarantine wisely as I spent a huge part of my week sleeping morning to night. Being stuck home with my entire family around me all day can also be a nuisance sometimes. On the bright side, I have a lot of time to read the very lengthy book for myth class. Hopefully, tomorrow I can begin catching up on all my work and start working out. It may take a while for me to get used to this stay-at-home learning but overall, it is not a bad experience.

What are the updates around the world/community regarding the virus?

        Today on March 26, USA is now unfortunately ranked first in the world for most confirmed cases, surpassing China and Italy, with 85k confirmed cases of coronavirus. . New York is still in the lead in the United States with around 38 thousand confirmed cases, and NYC having 23,112. Worldwide, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 500,000. The U.S. death toll is increasing at an alarming rate from the coronavirus, hitting 1,000 deaths. On Thursday morning, with the 100 new deaths, New York’s toll from the virus was 385. The number of patients hospitalized in New York had shot up 40 percent in a day, the sharpest increase in days. With increased numbers of people being hospitalized, numerous hospitals are alarmingly running out of PPE. In a letter sent on Thursday by Donald Trump, the administration plans to create new federal guidelines to help states make decisions about whether to maintain, increase or relax social distancing measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus through risk assessments. The president wrote that counties will be classified as high, medium or low risk.




https://ncov2019.live/



Your own personal feelings and thoughts about what is happening right now.

        A few weeks ago, I never expected all of this to happen, yet here we are. It is pretty scary how all of this is happening so fast with borders being closed, hospitals running low in equipment, and jobs being closed down. What will happen in the future is very unpredictable. The number of coronavirus cases are continuously rising and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. Moreover, these numbers are just confirmed and not a lot of people have access to test for corona. I am really amazed at all the steps that we are taking in order to prevent the spread of the virus and how hospitals are keeping up with the rapid increase of these cases.I am worried about the stores shelves being completely wiped out especially with a lot of people quickly hoarding supplies and some stores closing down. I feel that there is a very low chance we won't go back to school in April sadly, as we will miss a lot of our seniors activities. However, safety is most important and it is up to us to prevent the spread as much as possible. Best we can do is stay home and hope the coronavirus will die down quickly. Right now, I feel a bit relaxed as long as I stay home and keep myself healthy.


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